Liz Pape, Virtual High School

Janna Vega, Idaho Digital Learning Academy
Matthew Wicks, Illinois Virtual High School

IVHS
Model - team approach with each person on team providing specific expertise
Team Roles
  • Subject matter experts
  • Instructional design
  • Project management - shared between administrative oversight and LMS vendor academic services
  • Course developer
Partners
  • IVHS
  • eCollege
  • Sometimes other organizations - a university, perhaps
Identification of course needs
  • Annual surveys of participating schools
  • Teacher Interest (as instructors)
  • Replacing existing licensed courses - especially the more popular ones
Process
  • Recruit the subject matter experts, often teachers
  • Orientation meeting for prospective teachers
  • Kick-off meeting - identify roles and responsibilities
  • Develop course outline
  • Proof of Concept/QA/Formal sign-off
  • Iterative process: Unit Development/QA/informal sign-off
  • Final QA/Formal course Sign-off


Middle School Consortium
  • Benefits
    • Reduced cost
    • Multiple perspectives
  • Challenges
    • Extra coordination effort
    • Differeing prioritites
    • Differing standards of organizations
    • Ongoing course maintenance
Model: In-house development by fulltime staff
  • Curriculum and Instruction specialists in various content areas - all experienced online teachers with additional training
  • Continual need to update curriculum, resources, and technology
  • Changes made on-the-go in response to feedback from classes in progress
  • Curriculum team as a resource to teachers
Template for all courses ensures consistency across the entire curriculum
  • Organizatoinal framework
  • Naming conventions
  • Checklists and scheduling
Instructional Philosophy applied to course development
  • Clearly tyied to state standards
  • Utilize best practices and current research
  • Etc.

Model: Global Consortium Model
  • Course development partners - member school classroom teachers
  • Course revision partners- member school classroom teachers
  • VHS Staff - curriculum coordinators, instructional designers, instructional and education specialists
What about joining the Virtual High School??
  • So they use the "Teacher's Learning Conference," at which 100 teachers a year come to get trained AND develop a course 22 weeks long (15-25 hours per week)
OR
  • A new plan called "Netcourse Instructional Methodologies" at which a shorter training for teachers is deployed for high-demand courses that are already developed
Tie payment of course developers to a calendar of deliverables! Great IDEA!